Many of us didn’t know exactly what we were signing up for, but that doesn’t excuse us. Ignorance is the crutch of the weak, and by now, we’ve learned to become strong. I’m writing this now as a manifesto of the things we’ve been through, and things that I, personally, have encountered. During my time as a D-MISE agent, I’ve done some tremendous things, and equally terrible things. I wish I could say that I was ashamed of them, and on some level I must be to write this, but I can’t deny that it helped me live in an unlivable world, and I won’t apologize for that.

When this all started, I wasn’t much of anything. I had no direction in life, and Prism City wasn’t a very generous place. That hasn’t improved in recent years, and although I’ve had to face unthinkable consequences, I shudder to think where I could have ended up. Yes, I know about Paradise, and Utopia, and countless other squabbling communities that have popped up on Prism City’s streets. We have to know everything, including our fair city’s best kept secrets. We’ve made most of them. You’ll soon learn about a large quantity of them, but even I am not privy to all of them.

Our organization works best with decentralization. I don’t know who my superiors are. I don’t know who my inferiors are. I don’t know who my peers are. I only know who I know when I need to know them, and then I forget. I’ve become very good at forgetting, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I suppose that’s an occupational hazard I’ve been trained to accept, just like I’ve been trained to accept that my orders come when and where I least expect them. All I know is that I had better follow them, and failure is not an option.

There isn’t much else I would rather be doing, because before this I was lined up for death row. I wasn’t particularly a good person, but I can say with certainty that I didn’t belong there. I didn’t deserve to have my neck on the chopping block, but I had ended up there anyways. At the last second, I had received a pardon from an anonymous source, and before I knew what was happening, I was being loaded into an unmarked van like an animal and carted off to the unknown. I was dressed up like their doll and thrown into missions before I had even known the protocol. Looking back on it, I can see that was their test of my mettle, and I had passed. When I had, I came out the other side of their artificial adversity as a new man, with a new life, and even a new face.

This wasn’t a real face, but it passed for one. I remotely operated an android to do the dirty work while I stayed in the shadows where I belonged. It was through these electronic eyes that I had first encountered the being that irrevocably changed our world: Star Dog.